Across the great bay from San Francisco, the city of Alameda evolved into an island hometown of fine Victorian and Craftsman architecture and a port containing a naval air station, shipbuilding center, and the winter home of the long-gone Alaska Packers fleet of tall ships. But Alameda also was a busy railroad town. In 1864, a passenger railroad with a ferry connection created a commute to San Francisco. In 1869, the city became the first Bay Area terminus of the Transcontinental Railroad. Alameda became an island because a railroad allowed construction crews to dig a tidal canal, separating it from Oakland in 1902. Later generations rode steam, then electric, trains to a grand ferry pier where ornate watercraft guided them the 20 minutes to San Francisco. An auto tube, and later the San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge, hastened the demise of ferry, then rail, operations before World War II.
Born in 1822, Grant was the son of an Ohio tanner. He went to West Point rather against his will and graduated in the middle of his class. At the outbreak of the Civil War, Grant was appointed by the governor to command an unruly volunteer regiment, quickly rising to the rank of brigadier general of volunteers. In February 1862, he took Fort Henry and attacked Fort Donelson. When the Confederate commander asked for terms, Grant replied, "No terms except an unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted." The Confederates surrendered, and President Lincoln promoted Grant to major general of volunteers. At Shiloh in April, Grant fought one of the bloodiest battles in the West and came out less well. Lincoln fended off demands for his removal by saying, "I can't spare this man--he fights." For his next major objective, Grant then maneuvered and fought skillfully to win Vicksburg, the key city on the Mississippi, cutting the Confederacy in two. ISBN for Volume 1 is 9781582188935
“Leaps straight onto the roster of essential reading for anyone even vaguely interested in Grant and the Civil War.” —Ron Chernow, author of Grant “Provides leadership lessons that can be obtained nowhere else... Ulysses Grant in his Memoirs gives us a unique glimpse of someone who found that the habit of reflection could serve as a force multiplier for leadership.” —Thomas E. Ricks, Foreign Policy Ulysses S. Grant’s memoirs, sold door-to-door by former Union soldiers, were once as ubiquitous in American households as the Bible. Mark Twain and Henry James hailed them as great literature, and countless presidents credit Grant with influencing their own writing. This is the first comprehensively annotated edition of Grant’s memoirs, clarifying the great military leader’s thoughts on his life and times through the end of the Civil War and offering his invaluable perspective on battlefield decision making. With annotations compiled by the editors of the Ulysses S. Grant Association’s Presidential Library, this definitive edition enriches our understanding of the pre-war years, the war with Mexico, and the Civil War. Grant provides essential insight into how rigorously these events tested America’s democratic institutions and the cohesion of its social order. “What gives this peculiarly reticent book its power? Above all, authenticity... Grant’s style is strikingly modern in its economy.” —T. J. Stiles, New York Times “It’s been said that if you’re going to pick up one memoir of the Civil War, Grant’s is the one to read. Similarly, if you’re going to purchase one of the several annotated editions of his memoirs, this is the collection to own, read, and reread.” —Library Journal
More than a decade after his death, George Grant continues to stimulate, challenge, and inspire. During his lifetime he influenced a broad cross-section of Canadians, urging them to think more deeply about matters of social justice and individual responsibility. He wrote on subjects as diverse as technology, abortion, Canadian politics and nationalism, and the war in Vietnam, and was claimed equally by rightist and leftist causes. Grant's legacy includes six books and more than two hundred articles, as well as numerous broadcast transcripts, extensive correspondence, and a wealth of unpublished lectures, essays, and notes. In this projected eight-volume series, Grant's published and unpublished writings, including his complete correspondence, will be brought together for the first time. The texts are annotated, and each volume includes an introduction to the period that it covers. The series will not only make it possible to see the whole pattern of Grant's thought, but will also invite a reconsideration of the nature and importance of his work. Volume I covers Grant's intellectual development through his student years. Included are his early reviews, a brief journal written as he recovered from tuberculosis in 1942, and his earliest social and political writings about Canadian and international affairs. The most important of Grant's formative years were those spent at Oxford after the war, culminating in the writing of his DPhil thesis on the Scottish philosopher John Oman. In this dissertation, published here in full, we see the main themes of Grant's thought worked out for the first time.
On December 30, 1909, following the passage of the bond issue allowing construction of San Francisco's Municipal Railway to begin, Mayor Edward Robeson Taylor gushed, "This is great . . . The Geary Street road will now be built and run by the people and for the people. This marks an epoch. It means civic freedom. . . . Some day our children's children will look back with wonder at the things we have stood for and suffered. Public utilities run . . . by the people . . . will give service to the public.
A number of his more disturbing essays are also included, such as his controversial writings on abortion. The editors' substantial introduction places the articles in the wider context of Grant's life and thought."--BOOK JACKET.
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